charlie.crummer@gmail.com

Impressions of Paris and other random thoughts

16 January 2012

How time flies!  Here it is, winter again.  "La Soupe" was served again at St Eustache.  Afterward the toccatas of Bach and Widor on the grand orgue.  Then a choral group singing songs from countries all over Europe.  The finale was a jazz Manouche group called "Le Quartet à Claques."  What a joyous day and what a venue!  The ancient vaults and columns of the church were made so the townspeople could come and celebrate life. 

27 May 2010

It's been over a year now. Time for some more thoughts.  The Lousiana oil gusher is still raging and some are trying to make the case that limiting the liability of bp and other oil companies for the cleanup (cleanup?  riiiight.) will encourage competition.  Competition?  In what?  Drilling in the deep ocean?  When it is being demonstrated every day that no one knows how to handle a fountain like this once the awesome power of nature has been unleashed?   When will we ever learn?  bp, one of the biggest oil companies in this modern world hadn't a clue as to the magnitude of the risk in drilling at such a depth.  And there currently are operating wells in much deeper water.

Even if everything had gone well and we had not gotten this wakeup call, the effect of the price of oil, for that is all that can be hoped for such a venture, would have been lowered by an infinitesimal amount.  The only real advantage would have been to insanely enrich bp and its stockholders.  The idea of oil independence is a heartless lie.  Most of the oil is still in the middle east and our thirst for it won't be sated by drilling anywhere in the US.  The potential negative impact completely overwhelms any tiny and very risky benefit to the taxpayers.  It's to bp's advantage to "drill, baby, drill" though.  It's time to just leave things alone down in the deep ocean.

17 March 2009

It's St. Patrick's day and I don't have any green, or even orange, to wear.  Spring is here to stay though.  It's a beautiful Parisien spring day.

If you have a facial twitch the French call it a "tic," like we do.  But what if you have an obsessive compulsion like scraping your plate after you finish eating or saving string?  The French call that a "toc."  What if you have both problems?  I guess you're a clock, an "horloge."  Instead of  "deaf as a post," it's "sourd comme un pot," "deaf as a pot."   Our slang word "cool" must come from "couler," to flow.  I think when Garth from Wayne's World talks about "hurling," it comes from "hurler," to howl.

French Humor:  A hen wakes up at the sound of the rooster's crow.

    -- Good morning Lord rooster.  What's the news this morning?

    -- Wait a second, replied the rooster, I'll have to ask the duck.

           Jean-Pierre Argenteuil

2 March 2009   

I'll tell you what's true.  Paris is like a beautiful woman who snores snow and spits rain when she sleeps in the winter.  She's waking up now.  Her skies have beautiful clouds that are getting smaller and fluffier each day.  Some days she still dozes and sputters a little rain but those days are fewer and less frequent.  Her gardners are planting wonderful little pensées (pansies) and choux in the parks.   Trees in Tuileries are still bare and it's cold enough that you need a scarf and coat.  But the sun comes out and lights up the old Louvre and the Eiffel tower like a magical torch would.  As the clouds sail over, the light constantly shifts and changes.  Looking northeast from the famous Bir Hakeim bridge (watch "Last Tango in Paris") the steeples of the big old churches are alive and a bright, light beige.  In a few weeks she will be fully awake and basking in glory.

 

16 February 2009

Yesterday, Sunday 15 February 2009, Christine, Enée and I went to a solo Balalaïka concert by Gueorgui Swistounoff.  Now I am not a complete newcomer to the Balalaïka.  I have heard the Balalaïka before playing traditional dances like the Hungarian Csárdás  but I was not prepared for the virtuoso performance of “Variations sur le thème du 24ème Caprice de Nicolo Paganini” on a little 3-stringed lute.  As with the Grand Orgue, the impact of the performance is not a function only of the player and the instrument, but also of the space within which the performance takes place.  I think we chose a good seat near the back of the church because it allowed us to hear the effect that the large domed space had on the sound of the instrument.  I had the impression of the notes cascading like a waterfall and resonating in the grand space of l’Eglise du Saint-Esprit in Paris.  The sound was like drops of water splashing and joining to form a dazzling mist.  The music ranged from the Agnus Dei of Bizet to “Lara’s Theme” from Dr. Zhivago.   I couldn’t help thinking about the Irish tinwhistle, another minimal instrument.  For me, these instruments are similar in their ability to express an incredible range of feeling, from gay dances to a deep emotional yearning that seems to resonate from the soul. 

 

1 February 2009

At the American Cathedral in Paris today I heard Olivia de Havilland read the prayers.  Olivia de Havilland is 92 years old.  

Her voice was low and as she began, I thought, who is this who is reading  so dramatically?  I didn't recognize her at first but as she continued, I was transported by the force of the feeling she projected so effortlessly but intentionally.  I knew she attended the Cathedral so I soon began to suspect that this power was coming from Olivia de Havilland.  One could feel the consummate skill of a woman who had carefully honed that skill over many years and now, with the wisdom of those years, was bathing us all in the light of her voice and the meaning, from her soul, of the words.  

Olivia de Havilland is 92 years old and has she got the chops!  

 

30 January 2009

Obama is moving quickly to close Guantanamo and the Right Wing fear mongers are wringing their hands and saying that we are less safe now because of it.  I don't think so.  Though planes definitely hit the two towers, I am convinced that they, along with tower 7 which was not hit, were taken down by explosives set sometime before 9/11.  A terrible thought that haunts me and gnaws at my soul.

 The Economic System:  Though the arcane creation and selling of derivatives is extraordinarily complex, it seems clear that these "instruments" are inherently dangerous because they have nothing to do with the creation of actual wealth.  When the bubble burst, the price of a barrel of oil dropped by 2/3 almost overnight.  This couldn't have been due either to an increase of supply or a decreased end-user demand.  Speculation, including futures and other derivatives must have been responsible for the price of oil.  Think of it.  The prices we pay are out of the natural control of supply and demand.  Speculators create economic demand for goods and services that they do not use.  They just buy and sell paper.

 I'm thinking that a good analogy to the economic system is a musical instrument.  The only controls the performer has are the boundary conditions for the creation of the sound, the physics of sound itself, is immutable.  There must be rules within which the system is allowed to function otherwise, instead of the mellow sound of a saxophone, one may get the screech of a duck-call.

20 January 2009

The beginning of a new era.  Barak Hussein Obama is inaugurated as 44th President of the US.  His acceptance speech was thoughtful and strong.  He promised to "put away childish things" and get on with the job of governing a great country.  The implication was clear.  It would seem that he has already risen above the pettiness swirling in the bowl.  The Justice Department is well-suited to the handling of criminals.

18 January 2009

Just two days until Barak Obama's inauguration as President of the United States!  This is a time for the US that is without precedent.  The first black man to be elected to be president of the country, and elected decisively along with a democratic Congress.   It is a time without precedent also because of the grave damage that the Bush/Cheney administration has done to the country.  (At least they weren't elected!)

 What should be done about the high crimes that were certainly committed by the Bush administration?  They wiretapped citizens without warrant, held people, even citizens, in prison without access to the law and without being charged with a crime, and then there is the torture.  There are some trying to start a drum beat that we should just "move forward"  and not "take revenge" but it's impossible to move forward with the ball and chain of these heinous crimes unpunished.  There is a distinction between justice and revenge.

It is often said that we are country of laws.  It is crucial to the health and even the very existence of the United States that we uphold the laws of our nation.  It is no excuse to say, "I had the safety of the country at heart," or "I had a higher authority." It does not suffice to say that "Everthing changed after 9/11."   The United States must adhere to its stated principles in order to be strong, to be the nation we always say we are, a nation that can be trusted to uphold the highest ideals, a nation of moral principles, a nation of Family Values.

Our place in the world is very important, and not as the world's most powerful military state but as the beacon of light to the other countries.  A nation with the temerity, the audacity to hope for a better world for all and the resolve and fortitude to bring to justice evil doers and law breakers even those who have the highest office.

23 June 2008

Ah, last night was the annual Europe-wide fête de la musique.  Went to a party in Courbevoie again this year.  Heard a band called "The Rolling Dominos" as in Fats Domino.  They play '50s music that was brought back by the Blues Brothers movie.  All the venues, and there were many all over Paris, were free.

Look at the picture at the very top of the yellow flowers.  Can you find a little bug on the flower?  I don't know what he's doing but I'm sure he's working hard.

13 April 2008

I think about you all a lot, my American family.   Sometimes it's cloudy and rainy here and the wind blows.  Sometimes the rain blows through my clothes.  But if I stay too long inside, I start to miss the beautiful gardens and the old buildings with the spirits of so many thousands of people, famous and unknown both.   The city is a vast time-corridor into magical times of old.  In September during les jours du Patrimoine,  you can find little kids fighting big knights with broadswords beside the ancient wall of Phillipe Auguste.  There are stone masons with their peculiar tools.  The city has become a wonderland of magical castles and moats and donjons.

17 March 2008

The Ides have passed without incident.  Leaves are coming out and the flowers in the little parks are vivid.  The sky looks like the backdrop of the Magritte painting of the floating boulder.  I see the fierce bright light on a building just now.  The clouds are moving. Here's a  picture of a building on the avenue George V.

22 February 2008

Here I am at my cold bench in the jardin des Halles where the people are all above average ane the WiFi is free.

Look at the colors in the steam from the tea in the picture above.  It happens because the light here comes at a very flat angle in the winter and early spring.

The color of this font is meant to convey the sense of the temperature.  My hands are cold and I have to go in soon.  I hear the bells of St Eustache tolling for someone... me?  I'm glad to be moving to the Gobelins district in a couple of days.  The Gobelins is a famous carpet and tapestry factory.  I'll miss being just across the street from the Louvre but the Gobelins is a quieter area.   More later.

13 January 2008

It's cold today I am sitting on a bench in the jardin des Halles, a WiFi place.  Even though the day length is changing at its slowest rate, the days are noticeably longer.  The light is changing and some hardy  flowers are starting to peek out.

I just came from l'église St Eustache where there was a lunch for all.  It was indeed heavenly.  (I don't mean to offend the sensibilities of the atheists here.)  Onion soup, the way only the French know how to make it, sprinkled with emmental rapée and topped off by a delicious pastry.  All were there, dandies and the homeless.  Before the lunch, we were envelopped by Bach's Fugue in ré mineur.  It built in intensity until it was certainly heard by God and whatever other gods were listening.

There was a show at the orangerie in the Luxembourg garden of carved vegetables and fruits.  This picture is of a watermelon.  There are birds carved from turnips and lots of other things.

There is a merry-go-round in Les Halles and here is a picture of a cow that you can ride.  I sent this to grandma too.  She loves cows.  

24 November 2007

I am standing on a path in the Valée aux Loups (The valley of the wolves.) It is a garden with all kinds of different trees planted by the writer Chateaubriand.  I have never been to such a beautiful place before.  It is very special. 

Today I'm sitting in the park at the back of Notre Dame.  It's cold and the sun is low, but it is bright and the sky is clear.  The Paris skies are like beautiful water colors.  The little clouds are natural beauty that just enhances the classic skyline. 

I miss you all.  Gabriel, Grampa loves you and I want you to hug Delphine and tell her I love her too.  

 

17 November 2007

I'm sitting in a little music library in part of the area that was Les Halles, the big marketplace for Paris.  It has moved to Rungis, outside the city.  The library is in a warren of underground shops.  There is a big swimming pool and an even bigger cinema.  That place has so many theaters that it seems like an airport.  When you show your ticket, you can go in and sit in a lounge and buy 6-euro popcorn.  (not very good popcorn either)  The French don't have a lot of respect for popcorn like we do in the states.  The seats are pretty comfortable but with not a lot of leg room.  And the actors speak this funny language...

 

15 October 2007

Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and other Republican politicians, remarked about the Bush presidency something to the effect that, "Thank goodness the Duke is back."  Antonin Scalia, a Federal Supreme Court Justice, seemed to refer to the TV show "24" as precedent  for torture in case of imminent national emergency.  The world of fantasy is intruding on our lives.

On the other hand, there is the old movie, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence," starring Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, and... John Wayne.  Perhaps Noonan has forgotten or has never seen this Duke Wayne movie.   It deals with the taming of the Old West and shows the advent of the rule of Law in place of the six-gun.  Stewart, a peaceful lawyer new in town, is called out by Marvin, a particularly evil bad guy.  The Duke, in his typical role, has been the only source for peace in the little town and sees in his new friend Stewart the evolution of the administration of justice in terms of law.  Duke knows that the lawyer, unequipped to fight with a gun, will surely be killed by Marvin.  In the gunfight, Duke bushwhacks Marvin making it look as though Stewart won the fight.  For the rest of the film, the Duke sinks into alcoholism as a metaphor of the atrophy of the rule of violence.

The Bushies are attempting to roll the clock back to pre-1880 America.  They will fail but much damage will have been done to our country and its Constitution, a document of Law after all.

6 September 2007

Here is a picture of the original Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  It is the mill over the Marne river that supplied power for the factory and the whole company town of Noisiel.  It was owned by the Menier family and is now the France headquarters of Nestlé.  If you look closely at the little round portholes you will see the "M" for Menier.  (Upside-down "W.")

7 August 2007

"The [journalistic] truth is always subversive."  -Harold Pinter

I just watched Democracy Now which featured John Pilger, an English jour- nalist.  His talk was an indictment of a Liberalism whose idealism goads it to employ violent and sadistic means to "spread democracy" to those countries unable to resist the power of the United States.  Any means are justified by this noble end and the preferred means are always violent.  Since the unwashed masses in our country can't be expected to understand this, the cognisenti must craft a tissue of lies to persuade them.  

A serious flaw in humanity as it exists in its current state of evolution is that we are consigned to exchanging symbols that are supposed to indicate truth.  This a weakness because it admits the existence of lies, symbols that do not indicate truth.  I assure you that the photos (images of alleged real scenes) are not retouched.  They indicate truth; beauty and art.

6 August 2007

Here's a picture of la Reine de Paris from St Cloud.  She has her head in the clouds or she has risen above the cares of everyday life.  She is truly the icon of Paris.   With the quaint on the left and the modern on the right, I think that this scene speaks to the spectrum of Paris.  From Montmartre to La Defense, Paris embodies art.  That the Pompidou center is possible in the same city as the Pont Alexandre III and the Grande Arche with l'Ecole Militaire speaks to the fact that art is possible here, not only possible, but inevitable.

 

26 July 2007

The air in Paris seems always to be moving.  Above the changing breezes the clouds spirit on their way, sometimes rapidly.  Rain seems never far away, but not a serious rain.  Never a serious rain.  The sliding clouds sometimes send a few drops along on their journey.

The clouds move in different layers.  The near cumulus outrace the more majestic and distant cirro-stratus.  The droplets that make up the clouds; how do they know  one another's presence, to stay together to form a visible cotton mountain?  Sometimes the clouds are dark underneath.  Sometimes they obscure the sun.  The curds of the cirro-stratus clouds lie across the sky like cottage in rows.  Still.

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Here are some pictures especially for Gabriel.  Gabriel, I wish I were there to bring these flowers to you in my pocket. I really liked to bring you little flowers.  I will see you later.  --Grampa

 25 July 2007

Foxgloves in the forest, a little waterway in Provins, the ramparts, and a little family of ducks living in the ancient city.  Provins was one of the cities on an old trade route outside of Paris.  The old ramparts still exist as formidable as in the times when traders with goods from all over the world came there.  Provins souterrain was a warren of catacombs that served as a prison.  The imposing Tour César provided a vantage point from which to survey the surrounding fields.

16 July 2007

The Vivaldi Strings, a group of young people from Chicago played a concert in the Égilse de la Madeleine.  The music was flawlessly performed and filled that great space gloriously.  The church is in hommage to Mary Magdelene, not to Mary the mother of Jesus.  The statuary and the frescos are fascinating. 

It would be nice if the "Christians" running the US would think a little about the means they espouse to spread democracy.  (That is what they intend to do isn't it?)  The means suggested by Jesus, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and other successful leaders has nothing to do with violence, and their means were effective.  This partly because violence doesn't work but mostly because violence is immoral.  The Jews in Jesus' time were living in a terrorist state, the Roman Empire.  Christianity survived and the Empire did not.  The non-violence of Jesus philosophy provided an effective means.  The violence used in the name of Christianity to spread the power of the state was never in the tradition of the teachings of Jesus.

Getting old sneaks up on you.  I notice that my sense of balance is not what it used to be so I have to compensate by being especially careful to watch where I step and to listen to my body.  No more running up steps two at a time.  When the body is balancing itself normally, the muscles continually compensate to keep it erect.  I have to compensate for the degradation of this natural compensation.  C'est la vie.


12 July 2007:  Organ Concert
I've heard Virgil Fox.  I've heard Carlo Curly and E. Power Biggs and Pierre Cochereau.  Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin's performance of Widor's Toccatta defies description but I have to try.  It was like sparkling lights over a roiling sea of sheer power, ten thousand wheeling birds against the thunder of a hundred storms.  The sheer energy of the composition and the force of the small French dynamo who played it drew uncontrolled sobs from me.  Tears of wonder and awe sprang to my eyes as the sound pulsed around me.  She was playing the grand orgue of St Sulpice.  The combination of that mysterious holy place and the pulsing life of the force of her will as she wielded that great instrument was an almost unbearable beauty.

And then came the Improvisation.  A clarinet sounded the simple theme, heard for the first time by the master and then she began.  The theme restated, and then the world exploded.  She coaxed truly unearthly sounds from the great instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.  I'm sure her creation of such beauty can not have been dreamed of by the builder.  His is a work of art to be used by such creators as Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin.

6 July 2007

  The weather is always changing, the clouds moving restlessly, the sun coming in and out, a few drops of rain now and then.  A living city, breathing its weather.

21 June 2007

I was invited to a celebration called La Fête de la Musique at Courbevoie, near the Grande Arche de la Défense.  I thought it was to be a local event in a little park there.  I found out later that it was not only to be celebrated throughout Paris but throughout Europe!  Yet another bit of evidence that these people know how to live.  The jazz and hip-hop were great and also free.  Little kids were playing in the park and people living in Courbevoie took this as an excuse, if they needed one, to have parties on the terraces overlooking the park.

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Here is a shot of my little street after rain.   It is rue Fallempin, where I live in the 15th arondissement, at about 5:30 in the morning on a particularly Parisien day in July.

 

19 June 2007

She sits beside him quietly, in reverie, for a time, her arms relaxed, her hands open.  Gently, she raises her arms and draws him towards her.  The curves of her bare golden arms catch the light and shadow of the single lamp.  As she brings him near, she puts her head on his shoulder.  Neither speaks as she reaches out to him.  He silent, strong, and still, looking beyond her.  She supple, sensing his nearness.

She begins to caress him.  As she does so, he begins to speak with strong tonesand fluid laughter.

--The Harpist

 

I embrace Paris.  I touch her in her little parks.  I caress her on her narrow alleys.  Her perfume is the scent of newly sawn wood along the Canal St. Martin and the explosions of color in her gardens.  She gives me her cries of joy as the sounds of the magnificent organ in St Sulpice waft over my ears and my body.  In La Madeleine, the gossamer curtains of sound float free of the walls and over me, my face, my eyes.  I close my eyes.  Tears of joy well in my eyes, taking me by surprise.  My heart swells in my throat and explodes with the passion of the moment.

There is a little jazz club on l'Ile St Louis, "Au Franck Pinot. "  I enter and the proprietor greets me with his "Bonsoir."  "Est-ce qu'il y a du jazz ce soir ?" I ask.  He nods his head towards the stairway which leads to the ancient catacomb below.  The stairs spiral down to the second floor below the street and there, inside the old stone cave, is a quartet playing bebop.  It's hard to believe they do not speak English.  Their music is a universal language, needing no translation.

Near "Arts et Metiers" there is a little bar called "le Pestacle."   It's about 4m by 8m,  good beer, not so good sandwiches.  The group tonight  invites players to jam with them.   I purposely left my clarinet in my room.  Piano and tenor saxophone.  This is music to savor, eyes closed.  I'm getting to like just listening.  Both players are consummate professionals.  I and one other couple are the only ones in the place.  I listen to the sound of six hands clapping as they finish each tune.

I took my clarinet down to the Seine the other evening.  I found a place where I could sit alone.  Carefully, I put the horn together and then paused.  Who am I?  An old guy sitting in rapture beside the ancient river "flowing under" that has lived its life continuously since before the first man came there to receive its succor.  I'm a little nervous even though there is no one else around.  I can't remember any tunes so I just play some changes.  The river is kind.  It flows on.